Lei Hulu with Shadow Box

Wili Poepoe Style

18” Length 

Made with One Thousand Hand dyed Goose Feathers 

Feather Artist Statement:

My name is Shayna Kau’i Podlewski, and I am a feather artist on the island of Maui. I learned most of my Hawaiian culture with my hula hālau (hula foundation), Nā Hānona Kūlike ʻo Piʻilani, and I have been with this hula hālau for 19 years. Being in this hālau has taught me to be dedicated to education and traditional and nontraditional methods as long as I am learning. My first experience with feather work was making a lei hulu (feather lei) and kāhili pa’alima (feathered staff) with my hula instructor, Kapono’ai Molitau. Through his teaching, I realized that our Hawaiian cultural practices are a generational custom. Similar to Hawaiian feather work being passed down from master to student or kept as a generational practice in Hawaiʻi. However, Hawaiian feather work practices nearly disappeared after contact with Western culture. Then, with the revitalization of Hawaiian culture in recent times, many traditional practices were celebrated again. I have been taught by other master feather workers, Paulette Kahalepuna and Rick San Nicolas. I have been seriously creating feather work for 13 years.